I am about to close his page when an old urge pulls at me after being dormant for a long time. I slowly move the mouse pointer to the search box…it would be so easy.
“Upon my word, I have only witnessed guilty people wearing that expression,” The genie cuts into my dilemma. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” I sounded so insincere that I could have just admitted I was up to something.
“No point in denying it. I might as well have caught you red-handed from the countenance you are displaying. However, it is not my intention to accuse you of any wrongdoing. I am simply trying to resolve your nature as a function of my curiosity.” He eyes me knowingly from his standing position next to me. “Let the cat out of the bag,” he orders.
“Okay, okay. Guilty as charged,” I admit and spill the beans. “I wanted to spy on James’s profile. I blocked him so I wouldn’t be tempted, but from your account I can see his. He has no privacy settings.”
“I don’t quite grasp the meaning of all of this,” he replies, a bit puzzled. “The only question I have is: do you find it a good idea?”
“Genie, I’ve already decided I must confront him,” I argue. “I don’t think viewing a picture or two will make much difference.”
My last uncertainty dissipated, I type his name in the search box and press return. I guess I’ll have to throw away my J.A.A.—James Avery Anonymous—token after this.
He left me in January last year. We’ve been apart for a year and a half, and I haven’t looked at his profile for a long time. In fact, nothing on his page looks familiar anymore. My heart jolts in my chest the moment I see his smiling, tanned face appear on the screen. At least he doesn’t have a happy couple shot as his profile picture, I console myself.
My eyes quickly flicker to his last relationship status update. I read the word “engaged” on the screen, and my heart drops into my stomach. Somehow seeing it in writing makes it more real. I decide to prolong my agony and scroll down one alien image after the other. I feel my chest tightening at the thought of how little I know about his current life.
Of course, I come across the occasional picture with Vanessa, which makes me sick to my stomach. Fortunately, they seem more catalogue shots than a portrait of two people madly in love with each other. Or maybe I’m only kidding myself, and Brooke’s cynical version is the real one: love simply can end, and James has moved on.
As I keep sliding his profile further and further into the past, a bolt of lightning suddenly hits me. There on the screen staring back at me is a picture of our very last happy night together!
We were at Amy’s New Year’s party. The image shows me sitting across James’s lap with one arm around his neck. I am wearing a bright red dress. I have one of those stupid glittering party hats on my head and a matching silver foil horn in my other hand. James is wearing black pants, a white shirt, and a ridiculous red bow tie that I’d bought him to match my dress. The picture must have been taken right at the stroke of midnight, because there is silver confetti falling everywhere around us. The photographer caught that perfect moment of suspension before a kiss, when the lips are about to touch but they haven’t quite yet. He captured me staring deeply into James’s eyes, smiling, radiating with happiness, and James staring back at me with the same intensity, his hands wrapped around the small of my back and pulling me toward him.
James broke up with me just four days after posting this picture. I am frozen to the spot, speechless, unable to move.
“Are you ill, milady?” the genie asks. “You look like you are about to faint.”
His voice brings me back to present. I raise my gaze only to stare at him blankly, my head spinning with dizziness.
“Trust me, I can tell when a lady is about to collapse,” he states seriously, and then magically levitates me onto the bed. “You should drink some hot tea with plenty of sugar.”
English! Of course they would solve everything with hot tea. As annoying as the genie can be, he probably just saved me from passing out. I’m shocked by my reaction. I mean, not even seeing James in the flesh, and with Vanessa nonetheless, caused me such an internal turmoil.
Maybe because seeing him in person didn’t remind me so vividly of the sensations of that night. The feelings of pure love and of untainted happiness. The sense of belonging, of fulfillment, and the security of having one person there for you always. After seeing that picture, I feel like I’ve survived life this past year instead of living it. I can’t go on like this. I need to get to the bottom of this story and either win James back or get closure.
“Was that gentleman the famous James?” the genie asks, handing me a steaming cup of hot herbal tea. “Or, should I say, infamous?”
“Please don’t joke about him,” I murmur, still shaken.
“I apologize, milady. I will try to hold my tongue. You seem truly affected.”
“I am,” I whisper. “I wasn’t prepared for what I felt.”
“You never told me your story. How did you two meet?”
He’s trying to keep my mind busy by changing the subject, and I am glad for it. I’d rather talk about how we started than how we ended.
“It was very romantic—a stroke of destiny, you might say.” I gratefully sip my heavily sugared tea before launching into my narration. “It was a rainy day in September. I had just found my first job…well, my only job, since I’m still in it, and it was time for me to move out of the apartment I was sharing with Brooke.
“Upon graduating from college, we decided to split the rent for a nice condo in Wicker Park. But after just a couple of months of cohabitation, it became clear for the both of us that living together wasn’t good for our friendship, as we kept arguing about almost everything. Plus, she was getting quite serious with Dave, and I had a feeling they were just waiting for me to move out so he could move in.
“So, I started searching for a place to live on my own where the rent wouldn’t cut too deep into my entry-level salary. After four years of hideous college roommates and the not-so-good experience with my best friend, I’d decided I was going to live alone, no matter the financial stress. If it hadn’t worked with Brooke, it would’ve never worked with anybody else, and I wanted to be free for once. Free to shower at any weird time of the day or night, to clean when I wanted to, and not when it was ‘my turn’, to watch whatever the hell I wanted on TV, and I was tired of having to wash every single dish the second I’d finished using it.”
“Is it not a custom to have maids attending to these mundane tasks?” the genie asks without a trace of irony.
“Not if you’re young and broke. Anyway, back to that day. I was heading home from work, and of course I’d forgotten my umbrella. I was soaking wet and in a hurry to reach the subway. I had my leather bag suspended over my head in a vain attempt at salvaging my hair from the pouring water, and achieving only a reduction of my field of vision by half.
“Partly blinded by the rain and by my outstretched arms, I jumped on the first stair leading to my station without paying much attention to the track, and I gladly leaped on the arriving train. Inside, I found a seat right across from James and one of his friends.
“I was immediately fascinated by his dirty blond hair and warm, mocha brown eyes. He smiled at me, made a funny comment about the weather, and started a conversation. We chatted comfortably for a while until I heard the train’s speaker announcing the next stop. I asked no one in particular about what direction we were heading, and James confirmed that I had taken the train in the opposite direction to Wicker Park. At that point I jumped up from my seat, eager to get off as soon as possible, but with my usual clumsiness I sent my bag flying in the air, spilling its contents all over the floor.
“I quickly managed to collect everything in time to get off, and I was looking around to check if anything was missing when James handed me a book I had just started reading that had fallen under his seat. He had a dashing smile stamped on his lips, and I remember disembarking the train feeling sorry I would never see his charming face again.”
“But if you left, how did you find him afterwards?” the genie asks.
“Be patient, I am getting to it,” I say, carrying on with my story. “The very next day I found this apartment. I know it may not seem like much to you, but for me a one bedroom with a decent size living room, one and a half baths, in a nice neighborhood, and at an affordable price was all I could hope for. Having five hundred and twenty square feet solely to myself was a humongous improvement at the time, and more than enough for my first bachelorette pad. Anyway, that weekend I packed all my belongings, including the novel I was reading, and I was ready to move.
“As you may have noticed by now, I am not the tidiest person in the world. In fact, it took me a couple of months to sort through all the boxes, and it wasn’t until then that I rescued the famous book from lying forgotten at the bottom of one of them. I remember it as if it were just yesterday. It was a freezing Saturday afternoon in November—going out was out of the question due to the weather, so I decided to spend the afternoon cozily reading at home.
When I reached about halfway through the book, a white business card fell out of it. I recall being equally puzzled and excited by the discovery, even more so when my brain did the math and I understood it was the card of the attractive guy I’d met on the train. He must have slipped it in before returning the book to me.
“I kept flipping it in my hands for a very long time, undecided whether to call or not. I mean, I had met him two months previously—for all I knew, he could have a girlfriend by then, or he could be mad at me for not calling him sooner. In the end, I decided to give it a go. Whatever, I thought. I have nothing to lose. So I called him.
“At first I was a bit embarrassed, and I rambled a bit until he connected the dots and asked me if I was the soaked girl from the train. I said yes, and he joked that I was the slowest reader he knew. Then he asked me on a date, to which I said yes again. And, well, the rest is history.”
“Your story is indeed charming,” the genie says. “I fail to see what could have possibly happened to bring you to your present situation. It must have been something terribly wrong.”
By now I feel calm enough to throw a furtive glance at my laptop. I look at the New Year’s picture one more time, and shake my head.
“I wish I could tell you, Genie, but I genuinely don’t know. We were madly in love for three years. Everything was going well—no, not well, perfect. But after that night…” I point at the screen, “I don’t know. The next morning James left my apartment, saying he had to see his mother to wish her happy new year. He was acting completely normal. I would even go as far as to say he was happy, excited. He told me to cancel everything for the following Saturday because he had something special planned. I thought he wanted to ask me to move in with him or something. But after he left, I didn’t hear from him for the rest of that day, or the two following. He wasn’t picking up his phone, and he barely responded to my texts.
“Then Saturday came. I wasn’t sure if we were still supposed to go out or not, so I stayed in waiting for him. He came here very late. It was January and freezing, but he didn’t want to come up. He insisted that I met him in the street, so I put on a heavy coat and went downstairs.
“He was wearing only a shirt, no jacket, no coat, but he didn’t seem to be feeling the cold. I assumed he was drunk, since he reeked of vodka. He looked like a crazed man; he had bloodshot eyes, disheveled hair, and he hadn’t shaved for at least a few days. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me it was over.
“We talked—actually, it was more me pleading desperately and crying while he stood there silently. He didn’t give me any explanation, and when I tried to touch him, he pushed me away. I remember him shouting that he didn’t love me, and that he didn’t want to see me ever again. To me, his eyes were saying the opposite of his mouth. I don’t know how to explain it. He was crying, too. After that, he turned on his heel and ran away.”
“I tried to contact him afterwards, but he shut me out completely and my friends made me promise I wouldn’t try to reach him again. So, after a month or two of utter rejection, I gave up.”
“And you have not had an occasion to talk to him since then?”
“No. I tried to ambush him a couple of time since he wouldn’t pick up his phone, but only succeeded in embarrassing myself further.” I sigh. “So you tell me what happened, Genie, because I still don’t have a clue.”